Identifying Participants
Four types of actors have been crucial within the scope of this research. This is inspired by Xie’s (2011) approach of identifying the stakeholders in the process of authentication in ethnical tourism in China.
Type A: Place Makers - planners and the state. Planners are defined as the composing body for the development plans who would receive direct orders and requests from the developers and the state. The planners play a number of roles in the production of space, including implementing tourism development plans, shaping the land, establishing tangible construction arrangements for the buildings, roads and tourism facilities, etc. Hired by the developer and reporting to the state agencies, the planners are bridging the interests and conflicts between those two parties. Two planners were selected as participants of this research, and they are marked as Interviewees P1 and P2. P1 was working as an integral part of the early stage development while P2 was contemporarily formulating referred plans. In addition, an architect has contributed significantly to this research, most significantly providing the information that will be analysed in the next chapter.
The state are the government agencies and authorities that are relevant to the planning of the site. In terms of The Aqua, the role of the state is to examine tourism policies, development plans and regulatory mechanisms, and to maintain political structures. Yunnan Province Planning Bureau and Tourism Bureau were engaged with and two officials were interviewed. They were marked as Interviewees S1 and S2.
Type B: Place Makers – Developers and Management. At The Aqua, the developers and management are deeply interconnected but distinctive members of the participatory group.
In this research, the developers are defined as the persons and organisations who implement development plans and conduct activities that range from the purchase of raw land, to the construction of physical buildings and structures, and the sale of the developed dwellings (Peiser and Hamilton, 2012). Importantly, this definition combines the traditional sense of
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developers and constructors, as the development process of The Aqua requires the developers to be the coordinator of all types of activities that convert development ideas to real property (ibid). Also, as will later be revealed, the evolving development plan at The Aqua complicates the matter, pushing the developers further to adapt to a more ambiguous role than traditional real estate or tourism developers. On the developer side, four actors were selected as the participants for this research. Marked as Interviewee D1, the CEO of The Aqua acts as the representative of the developers and the ultimate decision maker for the management. Interviewee D2 is the head of HR, who is crucial in providing insight knowledge about the relationship between the site and the local communities, since the local communities are the major source of employees at the site. Interviewee D3 is the person who is in charge of the development of the medical centres, a critical feature for the site who will be discussed in detail. Interviewee D4 is the head of the finance who is valuable to the in-depth understanding of The Aqua as an imagined space rather than simply a physical space.
The management is defined as the persons or organisations that deliver the operation, control, and oversight of The Aqua. On the housing side, The Aqua consists out of various forms of dwelling establishments such as hotels, nursing homes, art studios, caravan spaces, rented tents and a boarding school. Therefore, the conventional Western understanding of second homes as the secondary rural housing for urban elites is fundamentally challenged by the presence of The Aqua.
Furthermore, on the tourism side, The Aqua complicates the issue further since it offers a wide range of tourist spaces. For example, the golf courses and horse riding tracks can be seen as elite tourism, the wetland hiking route and conservation tours could be seen as eco-tourism products, the medical centre is key for medical eco-tourism while the conferences, concerts and festivals are repeatable mass events. Therefore, the physical environment (both natural and physical) and the experience with the environment offers a complicated pattern in ‘intersection between housing and tourism’ thesis.
Interviewees M1, M2, and M3 are on the sales team who are promoting the second homes and tourism products to the prospect consumers. Interviewee M4 is responsible for the tourism facilities at The Aqua and Interviewee M5 is the manager of the properties and real
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estate. Interviewee M6 is working in the public relations office, which acts as the negotiator and communicator between the four actor groups.
Why are Type A & B relevant?
In China, planning activities include three different categories, with respect to the construction directory, land administration, development and reform commissions (Wu, 2015). Therefore, the process and the profession of planning are inseparable with the state and administration authorities in China. Planners take a proactive role since the state values planning as a means to manipulate the market and to achieve economic growth and production (ibid). Wu (2015) argues that there are three reasons why the planning profession boomed in post-reform China. Firstly, under the market transformation, the process of planning is commodified and has adapted well to meet the market development goals.
Secondly, in the Chinese context, planning has been adapted to cope with the increasing issues caused by marketization. Thirdly, the state has realised that planning could create legitimacy for economic growth and therefore strengthen the roles of the state during the market transition. As a result, the state and the planners are intertwined in terms of urban transformation such as the implementation of new towns and eco-cities.
Similarly, The Aqua represents a particular form of tourism and housing development in China.
In this scenario, the developers cooperate strongly with the management of the site, as well as with the communities within the site. By contrast, in Western cases, second home developers are less attached to residents. For this research, what is important is not the analysis of The Aqua as a tourist place, but the kind of space that it wishes to represent itself as and the power relations that produce such a space. Therefore, the planners and the state are crucial for gathering valuable information in terms of the production of The Aqua.
How to access type A & B?
Type A is discrete from the site and relatively harder to establish connections for the research.
Fortunately, though social connections available through family and friends, I was able to secure participation of two of the officials who were directly involved in the authoritative and planning process. Not only had they granted me interviewing privileges, they also gave me the opportunity to closely observe the everyday operation of the City Planning Administration
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(‘gui hua ju’9) and the Tourism Planning Administration (‘lv you ju’10). These became crucial for the gathering of information. The concern of bias is decreased by the professionalism of the participants, as well as the coherence and contradiction between their answers.
For the developers, as my parents are homeowners, they had established a relationship with the Manageing Director of the CITIC in The Aqua. I was introduced as a research student who had connections with them. After this, my further work with these research participants did not involve my parents. In such a way, I managed to maintain relationships with the participants as well as filtering out as much bias as possible that could emerge from my personal status. This strategy turned out to be effective for this research.
How the data was recorded?
Understandably, many participants in type A seemed careful with their participation for personal and professional reasons. Finding the right approach to record data was not always smooth. Luckily, I was allowed to take notes in most of the situations, although voice recording was often not permitted. Not that this research contains any politically or commercially sensitive information, nonetheless, most of the participants felt uncomfortable speaking when the voice recorder was on. Therefore, short notes and mental notes are recorded, which were immediately expand and transcribed on paper afterwards. This is also one of the reasons why computer based software is not appropriate for this research.
Thankfully, this inconvenient way of data recording did not reflect the quality of the data.
Instead, most of the participants offered relevant, direct and honest information regarding in response to my questions.
9规划局
10旅游局
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Type C: holiday makers - second home owners and visitors. Second home owners are the ones who purchased second home properties at the site. Four house owners and four condominium owners were attracted as participants (O1 – O8). The visitors are defined as the persons who visit The Aqua without being owners or employees at The Aqua. Seven visitors have participated in this research, including a conference attendee, a horse rider, two golfers, and two hikers. They are recorded as V1 – V7. The selection of holidaymakers is based on their accessibility and relevance. Although my parents are excluded from this research, the fact that they own a second home in The Aqua gives me an immediate access point into the community. This is an advantage that many of the researchers did not have when they criticised second home communities (e.g. Hall, 2004).
Most importantly, some of the participants offered me a chance to stay with them while they were present (O1 – O4). I met these participants at the swimming pool, which I frequented as a guest myself. The family was interesting to me in the first place because there were three different accents that were spoken between the four of them. O1 spoke to O3 in local dialectics (‘kunming hua’11), while O1 spoke to O2 in ‘Putonghua’. O2 spoke to O4 in a Northern Chinese accent (‘Dongbei hua’12). Clearly, the family consisted out of multi-regional members. After a short conversation they became very interested in this research project and asked me if I wanted to stay with them for 3 nights. I began talking to them, expecting interview opportunities, and I ended the conversation with a great observational participation chance. This event turns out to be critical for the data collection in this research.
11 昆明话
12 东北话
149 Why is Type C relevant?
Holidaymakers are the direct actor group who are experiencing the site of The Aqua. Thus, their spatial practice, imagination and experience at The Aqua is the most direct and complete.
By understanding their participation in The Aqua, it is possible to link the spatial characteristics with their existential authenticity and sense of justice.
However, there were some unexpected difficulties and challenges associated with the selection of participants. Compared to owners, visitors were less conducing to the research in terms of the information that they offered. Most of the visitors had stayed in the condominiums where working space is not available. Also, the visitors were on a relatively tighter schedule and hence the interviews were kept shorter than expected. Despite these issues, through participant observation and interviews abundant data was gathered.
Type D: conductors – staff and local communities. A group of ten staff members volunteered to be participants for this research. Among them, eight participants were from the local communities while two were from other townships in the county. As will be discussed later on, the local communities are merged as the labour pool for the newly developed site of The Aqua. The local communities are the actual conductors of all the tourist experiences and activities in The Aqua. Also, their involvement in The Aqua marks one of the most important findings of the research; that is, the relationship between second home development and spatial justice.
How to access?
It required additional effort in order to gain access to the last actor. While I was staying at my parents’ second home, a team of locals came to the house on a daily basis for cleaning and service. By chatting to them, I acquired permission to conduct proper interviews with them.
Also, through their connections, I extended my research to the further members of local communities (e.g. the restaurant owner).
By contrast to Hall and Müller (2004), who specifically claimed they are not owners of second homes, I suggest that such ownership is an advantage because it allows accessibilities to varies actor groups for a rich set of perspectives and opinions. Under such set up, the methods used in this research become possible.
150 Participant Observation
Participant observation is an ethnographic method designed to understand the context of everyday life within a certain place (Hay, 2000). Participant observation allows the researcher to be immersed within an environmental setting for a period of time, and learn interactions and behaviours, listen to what is said in conversations and ask questions (Cloke et al., 2004).
Therefore, participant observation is a particularly effective method for research that requires data that must be gathered from local perspectives through community involvement (Hay, 2000).
Participant observations serve two specific functions within this research. Firstly, through participant observation, this research establishes access to, and constructs dialogue with the research participants (Taylor et al., 2015). In other words, participant observation grants a pre-interview session that facilitates the relationship between the researcher and the actor groups. Secondly, participant observation is a method that allows me, as a researcher, to experience the activities under observation. As the participant observer, the researcher has the opportunity to gain insights of the actor groups that are shaping the space of The Aqua through their actions (see Venkatesh, 2009).
In this research, participant observations were unstructured and naturalistic (Veal, 2006) as a result of my three interchangeable roles. As the kin to the second home owners, I had the opportunity to not only immerse myself as an observer, but also to consume the visitor/touristic interpretations on offer. Similarly, as the research student who can speak the local dialect, I was able to act as a gazer as well as a participant who was involved in the planning, management and daily operations of the site. My participant observation followed the guideline that was promoted by Hay (2000). Since every situation is relative, contextual and unique, the rules that apply in participant observation need to be concerned more with the researcher’s capacity for introspection with respect to the researched than the approach that he takes (Hay, 2000).
In terms of techniques to conduct participant observation, this research follows Lofland (1995) and adopts the following recording process:
Mental notes – particularly useful when it was inappropriate or inconvenient to take notes in a written form. Examples of this were in the lavender fields or
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on a boat in the wetland where I had to participate in actions with the participants.
Scratch Notes and Photographs – brief notes were taken to add to the mental notes. By using techniques such as little phrases, quotes, key words, scratch notes are often more appropriate than digital recorders for memorising the initial feelings and ideas (Lofland, 1995). Photographs are also useful as a means to obtain jotted notes.
Full Field Notes – at a later stage, the mental notes and the scratch notes were written up in full detail for comprehensive annotations. These notes were used as the final data source for the participant observation, alongside the photographs taken. Full field notes are the reflections to the periodic intervals throughout the various stages of observations. As later will be discussed in the upcoming section, field notes are important indicators for emergent themes.
Table 5.9 shows the duration of time spent on participant observations at respective sub-sites and specific events. Due to the size of its contents, the full version of the table is shown as Appendix III.
Locations (sub-sites within The Aqua) Participant Observational Events The Aqua Visitor Centre (also second homes
sales)
See Appendix III
The Second Homes Area
Touristic attractions (Golf, horse riding fields, lavender parks, and wetland area) Urban Planning Bureau
Table 5.9 Locations and Events for Observation Source: author
Semi-Structured Interviews
Early researchers in social science see interviews as conversation with a purpose (Webb and Webb, 1975). Similarly, interviews can be defined as the ‘face-to-face verbal interchange in which one person, the interviewer, attempts to elicit information or expressions of opinion or belief from another person or persons’ (Maccoby and Maccoby, 1954, p. 499). As a result of the advancement of technology, such as the telephone and especially the emergence of
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computer-mediated communications, the conventional idea of interviews as conversations had soon been replaced by interviews as a powerful source to generate analytical information (Cloke et al., 2004). For Dunn (2000), what distinguishes an interview from a chat is that it requires careful planning and detailed preparation. This is because ‘meaning is not constantly formulated anew, but reflects relatively enduring local conditions’ (Foucault, 1975, in Holstein and Gubrium, 2004, p. 14).
There are different forms of interviews available in social research (Ritchie et al., 2013). The main comparisons of varies types of interviews are illustrated in Table 5.10.
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Descriptor Structured Semi-Structured In-depth/
unstructured
Style Specific protocol of
question and answer
Conversation-like Conversation
Design Structured Semi-emergent Emergent
Researcher Stance
Objective Subjective Subjective
Researcher
Limited reciprocity Reciprocity Reciprocity
Material/Data Basis of analysis Mathematical and
statistical analysis
Table 5.10 Comparison of Structured, Semi-structured and Unstructured Interviews.
Source: adapted from (Jennings, 2005)
Semi-structured interviews are employed in this research because they are effective to understand key informants in complex socio-cultural scenarios (Dunn, 2000). More importantly, semi-structured interviews allow flexibility in terms of the wording and sequence of questions according to the needs of certain circumstances (Cloke et al., 2004). This is crucial for this research as the interviewees are involved in four different communities who are
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placed in different locations. In this way, it was expected to require logical gaps within data so that it can be anticipated and closed (Kitchin and Tate, 2013).
New lines of enquiry can emerge out of the interview process and therefore interviews can also be transpired as ‘co-authored narratives’ (Kvale, 2008). The interviewer can interplay the interviewees during the interview process so that the output of the interview can be seen as a ‘joint social creation’ (Kvale, 2008). In order to pursue a valid joint creation, the conduct of the interviews requires guidelines to follow. Kvale (2008) suggests a combination of introducing questions, follow-up questions, probing questions, specifying questions, direct questions, indirect questions and interpreting questions.
In this study, the essential aim of the interviews was to reveal and explore respondent values, insights, encounters and emotions of their experiences with The Aqua, against their perceptions about authenticity and social justice. The key to achieve this aim is to ensure a set of highly variable questions (Bryman, 2015), as well as a purposeful sampling strategy (Jennings, 2005). A good sampling strategy requires careful selection of people who were considered relevant to the research. Indeed, this research adopts some specific and purposeful criteria to sample the participants.
Given the nature of the research, only adults are selected as interviewees because they are more involved in the ‘production side’ of the site. Secondly, due to the complex nature involved in the research design, it was decided that the research needs to focus on the significance and relevance of the participants rather than the number of them. Therefore, limited number of participants are selected as interviewees. Finally, interview respondents
Given the nature of the research, only adults are selected as interviewees because they are more involved in the ‘production side’ of the site. Secondly, due to the complex nature involved in the research design, it was decided that the research needs to focus on the significance and relevance of the participants rather than the number of them. Therefore, limited number of participants are selected as interviewees. Finally, interview respondents